Social Media Marketing

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individual community members. This is directly analogous to the way personal reputa-
tions are built (and sometimes destroyed) in real life.
Reputation systems—formalized manifestations of the curation process when
applied to profiles and the acts of the people represented by them—are essential com-
ponents of any business community. Without them, all sorts of negative behaviors
emerge, ranging from unreliable posts being taken as fact (bad enough) to rampant bul-
lying and abuse (which will kill the community outright).
Recall from social media basics that you cannot directly control a conversation
on the Social Web. Unlike your ad or public relations (PR) campaign that you can start,
stop, and change at will, on the Social Web it’s generally not your conversation in the
first place, though you may well be a part of it. Rather, the conversation belongs to the
collective, which includes you but is typically not yours alone. On the Social Web it
is the actual customer experiences, combined with your participation and response to
it, that drive the conversations. Here’s the connection to customers, communities, and
reputation: Authority—manifested through reputation—has to be earned rather than
assumed. Reputation, which applies at the individual level just as it does to the brand
or organization, accrues over time in direct response to the contributions of specific
members associated with that brand or organization. A declaration of “guru” means
relatively little without the collective nod of the community as a whole.
Reputation management works on the simple premise of elevating participants
who behave in ways that strengthen the community and by discouraging the behav-
iors that work against community interests. Posting, replying, offering answers or
tips, completing a personal profile, and similar are all behaviors that typically result
in elevated reputations. Intel’s Developers program, shown in Figure 2.1, has an excel-
lent reputation management system based on the martial arts belt levels. It’s an eas-
ily understood systems of points earned for specific actions, and the achievement of
elevated levels is truly of badge of honor among the community members. Taking spe-
cific steps when designing a community program that encourage profile completion are
referenced in Chapter 4, “The Social Business Ecosystem,” and then covered in detail
in Chapter 11, “The Social Graph.”
The importance of the reputation system in a social community cannot be over-
stated. Absent reputation management, individual participants are essentially left on
their own to assess their own value and that of the participants around them, which
rarely leads to a satisfying experience. Beyond the work of a skilled moderator and
a well-designed reputation system, tips and guidelines should be presented clearly.
Helping your community members do the right thing on their own—rather than simply
telling them to do it—is a direct benefit of a reputation management system. Rather
than prescriptive rules, a dynamic reputation management system provides feedback
that guides members—in the moment and in the context of specific activities— in the
direction that supports the collective need of the community. When implementing any